March 14, 2005

C.U. Breaks Virtual Ground

By | March 14, 2005

Trustees, administrators and faculty broke “virtual ground” for the New Life Sciences Technology Building with a video history of the University’s life sciences program and a special surprise presentation Friday.

The University has said that the building is the most ambitious scientific facility yet planned for campus.

“We are breaking ground for what is truly a groundbreaking building,” said Peter C. Meinig ’62, chair of the Board of Trustees. “Cornell doesn’t build a $140 million building every day. I think I join many in saying, ‘thank goodness we don’t.'”

Richard Meier ’56, the building’s architect, spoke to the gathered audience of trustees, faculty and administrators about his time at Cornell and his vision for the new building.

“Having enjoyed this campus during my architectural studies, during my five years here, I always hoped and dreamed that I would be able to give back to the University, just a little,” Meier said. “I’m very happy and very fortunate to have been able to realize this dream.”

He talked about the challenges of integrating the bold new building with the rest of campus and with the University itself.

“Our goal was to design a building that would meet not only all the programmatic requirements, but would also heighten the user’s and the visitor’s awareness of everything around it,” he said.

To this end, he told the audience that the building would be distinguished by whiteness, materiality and transparency. The building will also be connected to other structures through a series of underground tunnels, many of which are already in place. It will feature a cafeteria and a large atrium that “brings light into every level of the building.”

“Light will be a key material” of the building, Meier said. “[Meier] exemplifies what the poet Wallace Stevens called an ‘inquisitor of structures,'” Meinig said. “He is one of the greatest and most creative architects in the world.”

Provost Biddy Martin spoke about the influence that faculty had on the creation of the building and the $500 million Life Sciences Initiative behind it.

“This building is the dream of our faculty, of a grassroots effort on the part of a faculty in the life sciences,” she said. “Today approximately one-third of all faculty at Ithaca are involved in the study of living organisms,” she added, also saying that all the faculty at Weill Medical College are involved in the study of health and living organisms.

She said that this created an amazing opportunity for cross-disciplinary and cross-campus collaboration.

Kraig A. Adler, the vice provost for life sciences, spoke about the origins of the initiative, saying that it truly begun with eight professors in five colleges in the mid-1990s and eventually grew to be a project involving hundreds of students and faculty across Cornell’s campuses.

“We want to pay special tribute here today to these faculty whose vision and advice will long be remembered in the annals of Cornell,” Adler said.

Sanford I. Weill ’55, trustee emeritus and a member of the board of overseers of Weill Cornell Medical College, said that connectivity between disciplines is becoming a reality “today, even before we put the virtual shovel in the virtual ground for the new building.”

He talked about a conference last semester which brought together faculty from different disciplines to discuss “hot topics” in the life sciences.

He said the first proposals from that conference were starting be funded already.

President Jeffrey S. Lehman ’77 said that the project was “as large in scale and as bold in design as the teaching that will go on in it.” He told the audience that “Cornell’s pioneering work in nanobiotechnology, begun … 25 years ago, has expanded to such a degree that we needed a sophisticated new facility in order to preserve and extend our leadership.”

At the end of the video presentation, which featured Cornell students digging on Alumni Field, the building’s planned location, the Cornell students pictured in the video rushed in wearing official Cornell sweatshirts and carrying buckets of ceremonial dirt which they presented to the speakers.

Related

ByMarch 15, 2005

This month, all the movies being shown at Cornell Cinema are either about music or have great soundtracks. Inspired by the iPod revolution (the ability to listen to any song from an entire music collection on one’s iPod), the films this month range in subject from opera to punk rock, and in style from documentary to Hollywood mainstream hit. Kicking off March Music Madness is Closer, an Academy Award nominated film that features a fantastic soundtrack, with artists ranging from Mozart to the more contemporary Damien Rice. A different set of contemporaries, The Ramones, appear on the big screen inThe Ramones: The End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones. The director of this film lifts the veil to reveal the conflict and struggle the band encountered as one of the most influential punk rock groups of all time. The series continues its foray into rock music with Festival Express, featuring live performances by Janice Joplin, The Grateful Dead and The Band, to name a few. In the same vein, our next vision is of indie rocker Anton Newcombe in the film DIG! The film includes his music and a special treat of actual concert footage. Tom Dowd and the Language of Music is a film of a similar subject matter. It is about Tom Dowd, a producer and recording engineer from the sixties and seventies. Of course, none of this music would have beenpossible without the right equipment. The film Moog is about the invention of the Moog Synthesizer, which was invented right here in our own back yard. Trevor Pinch, professor and department chair of science and technology studies, will be introducing the film. Cornell graduate Robert Moog PhD. ’65 invented the synthesizer in Trumansburg, very close to Cornell. “Trumansburg was the cutting edge of cool for a while,” Pinch said. Speaking about the documentary, Prof. Pinch noted the “personal approach that director Hans Fjellestad took to Bob Moog and the electronic circuitry. His homespun personality really comes through. Bob is a very very nice dude.” The film is set in the sixties and includes black and white footage of Moog concerts. Moog will only have one showing before Spring Break, on March 17th, and the rest of the showings will be over the vacation. But rock isn’t the only thing the series has to offer. The film Callas Forever chronicles opera legend Maria Callas. Madame Briquette is a Senegalese saga of passion, betrayal and chauvinism with a soundtrack of great African music. The last two films, Radical Harmonies and A Letter to Mother cover two more aspects of music. A Letter to Mother is about the struggle of European Jews in 1939. The film follows a mother trying to support her family, and features Yiddish folk music. Radical Harmonies follows the careers of women in music. The documentary has a fantastic soundtrack and includes contemporary women musicians like Ani Difranco and the Indigo Girls. The line-up this month is bound to be an enjoyable one, and covers all areas of music. There is something for everyone here. For more information on films, dates and show times, check out the Cornell Cinema website at www.cinema.cornell.edu.Archived article by Rebecca Wolozin Sun Staff Writer

ByMarch 15, 2005

With a live jazz band playing in the background, Help a Life Organization (HALO) held its second annual art auction this past Friday entitled “A Painted Gala” in the Johnson Museum as part of a fundraiser for children living in the Sudan. About 150 pieces of art were all live auctioned and showcased from 50 different artists. The event raised over $5000 in total; $1000 from a silent auction held last Wednesday among trustees, and the rest through the live auction. Last year $3000 dollars were raised in total from the event. “I think this event was very successful,” said Nick Hilliard ’05, one of the organizers of the event. “It’s fun to get people out and do things they normally wouldn’t do, especially for a good cause like this.” The pieces themselves were donated from a mix of artists, collectors, students and alumni. HALO, an organization founded in 2001 at Cornell, devotes its time to improving the lives of infants and young children. The group has donated an infant resuscitator to Cayuga Medical Center, made infant sleepers and blankets with other members of the Cornell Community and donated $3500 to a children’s hospital in Nepal. Last year, the group sent the $3000 it earned from the auction to Bangladesh for infant healthcare supplies, said Jessica ’05, one of the main coordinators of the event. Describing the conditions in the Sudan, the HALO president Fatima Iqbal ’05 said, “Out of 1000 babies born [in the Sudan], 93 will die before they reach the age of five. Only eight out of 1000 in the US will die.” Before the second round of live auctions started, Uvinie Hettiaratchy ’06 gave a presentation on a summer she spent in the Sudan after her freshmen year. The presentation included slides of the people of the Sudan, children, Bedouin tribes, living conditions, seemingly abandoned cities and the patients of a leprosy camp she visited. “It’s important to give a face to exactly where your money is going” she said. After the first auction, the success of the event was apparent. “So far it extremely successful,” Hayes said. “Only one third of the art has been sold, and we’ve raised over $1000,” she said Compared to last years auction, the success was also apparent through the increase in attendance, even despite technical problems with publicity. “I feel like more people are here as opposed to last year, because last year we held it in the [Willard Straight] Memorial Room,” Iqbal said as the explanation to the increase of size. “The art theme is brought out here more, and people just want to be in the Johnson.” While the attendees were cautious at first, toward the end of the night many bidding wars erupted, bringing works of art starting at $20 up to $190.Archived article by Emily GordonSun Staff Writer